The Role of Web Services in Portal Design: Approaches for an Algerian University Library

Brigham Young University BYU ScholarsArchive Faculty Publications 2009-09-15 The Role of Web Services in Portal Design: Approaches for an Algerian University Library Mohamed Ridda Laouar University of Tébessa, Algeria, [email protected] Richard Hacken [email protected] Mathew Miles Brigham Young University - Idaho, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Library and Information Science Commons BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Laouar, Mohamed Ridda; Hacken, Richard; and Miles, Mathew, "The Role of Web Services in Portal Design: Approaches for an Algerian University Library" (2009). Faculty Publications. 1577. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1577 This Peer-Reviewed Article is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. The Role of Web Services in Portal Design: Approaches for an Algerian University Library Whoever first thought of using a networked computer as a scholarly workstation to which (and from which) information might flow freely may well have been a librarian, at least in the honorary sense. But the dream of such a data nexus – along with all the tools of connectivity, discovery and documentation a scholar is likely to need – has been developing in steps, piecemeal, and is still not yet fully realized. The need to establish an academic information portal for our university library led us to study the literature of documentation and design principles for existing portals as a means of choosing best practices that would fit our situation. The growing number of web applications to manage – the delicious dilemma of too much information – was a problem we hoped to solve by setting up a portal. We also felt that such a portal could provide answers to problems of data transfer and access (Ignat et al., 2006). In sum, we wished to design a methodology whereby each of our users could draw together multiple information tools and sources from a single access point. In something of a balancing act between technology and economy, we wanted to find how extant computer systems might help us aggregate as much information into easy-to-use terminals as possible while perforce implementing such a system with low entry costs. In the following article, we suggest provisional definitions for portal phenomena, present a series of evolutionary steps we have witnessed in the development of information portals – looking at specific portals along with the desirability of their design properties – and then we analyze the lessons learned by discussing some web technology elements that seem promising for the architectural planning and infrastructure creation of a library portal at the University of Tébessa in Algeria. 1. DEFINING THE “PORTAL” AND ITS VARIANTS Architecturally and therefore literally, a “portal” is some sort of gateway or even grand entrance – especially into an important edifice such as a fortress, mosque or cathedral – whose features make it possible to control entry and exit and are often highly ornamented. The figurative meaning of “portal” in the virtual realm may benefit more from the borrowed concepts of entrance into an important space and entry control than from ornamentation (though the latter could be tied to attractiveness or user friendliness). Thus in the broadest sense, while keeping in mind the architectural parallels, we could say that a “portal” represents a unique electronic port of entry to a wide range of resources, services or both that are needed within a particular information community. The closest general term to “portal” is perhaps “information portal,” though a given portal may contain ancillary tools, often as part of a complementary “application portal” (see section 1.1), that are not directly associated with information retrieval and dissemination. Since our university library in Algeria operates as a bilingual Arabic and Francophone institution, we note that the general term in French “portail documentaire” is a false cognate for English speakers: the word “documentaire” in the technological sense means “information” and goes beyond the narrower meaning of “documentary.” A “library portal” would be one type of “information portal” and would necessarily consist, at least in the current understanding, of at least metadata and data that can be locally or remotely hosted. The “scholarly portal” or “scholarly information portal” distinguishes the academic from the commercial portal. The “enterprise portal” or “corporate portal” is congruent with the design of a scholarly portal but with a very different bottom line and user community. Both scholarly and enterprise portals increasingly rely on de-centralized provision and management of content, which ideally keeps the content current and minimizes local labor costs at any one institution. We are tempted nowadays to use the phrase “web portal” as a synonym for “information portal,” especially since web access is ubiquitous and forms the central engine of today’s portals. As we shall see in the following historical section, however, early types of portals were local and mostly self-contained – though some of them could be accessed in awkward ways remotely. Early library catalogs are one example of such early non-web portals. At the present time, though, a web portal can grant the information community (library users, company employees, etc.) access to the panoply of services involving electronic mail, discussion forum, digital publication space, proprietary databases, search engines, and more. One of the strengths of a current web portal is that it typically allows the user to authenticate a single time to access all the resources offered. This saves users the time and frustration of having to authenticate each time they access a different resource. Authenticated users are allowed to register and connect to the portal for using a set of proposed services, notable among them the customization of their own workspace, which is organized with the assistance of portlets, forming a basic man-machine interface (IHM : “interface homme machine”). For staff and, if desired, partners and affiliates, the web portal is thus the entry point for data retrieval within an organization. The aim of the portal is to situate the user centrally within the information system. In fact, the tools bundled in the portal allow the user: - to have a single access point for multiple sources of information, - to acquire information that is organized and structured, - to shape and customize information to the user’s interests and proposed tasks. A “digital library” is one specific type of portal that can involve a combination of searchable metadata and retrievable digital objects, though it may or may not limit itself to locally held objects and may include some of the peripheral services listed under “web portals” above. The term “digital archive” is sometimes used for an analogous online collection. As one answer to the scholarly communications crisis (aggravated in a time of financial hardship), an “institutional repository” is a type of local digital archive of a home institution’s professional publications – to the degree copyright clearance is possible. A “federated search,” involving the retrieval and combination of results from multiple information providers, may be a variety of search portal in its own right, but it is often used as one cornerstone in a more variegated online library services approach. That is to say, one type of “portal” may be contained within another “portal.” Perhaps the term “P2P” that now refers to a “peer-to-peer” network might come to include the nested connotation of “portal- to-portal” access as well. A “metadata repository” is a broad term that could include catalogs, digital libraries or portals that allow for searching of metadata. The item thus identified might be either digital or analog, either local or remote. “Information systems” is perhaps the broadest term of all, which would subsume all types of “portals,” “catalogs,” “digital libraries” and “metadata repositories” along with other cyber-tools for information query and/or storage. Smith (2004) describes the term “portal” as problematic, since it has been applied to widely different systems – from static and simple web pages to dynamic and sophisticated virtual conglomerates. He argues for adoption of “a definition that distinguishes portals from all other types of information systems and a General Portal Model (GPM).” (Smith, 2004, p. 93). His suggested definition is that of “an infrastructure providing secure, customizable, personalizable, integrated access to dynamic content from a variety of sources, in a variety of source formats, wherever it is needed.” (Smith, 2004, p. 94). Kalyanaraman and Sundar (2008) seek to add some conceptual clarity to the portal concept by making functional differentiations. They uncover five related metaphorical notions for the portal – gateway, billboard, network, niche and brand – that in turn suggest five leading aspects of portal utility – respectively, control, content, community, customization and commerce. For purposes of clarity, we will distinguish in the following article between the types of portals discussed in this section. Unless otherwise stated, we will generally be referring to an information portal tied to web services. 1.1 IDENTIFYING VARIANT FUNCTIONS

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